Sad trombone —

Apple’s WWDC 2013 tickets sold out in a record two minutes (or less)

Apple's developer community is not pleased.

Apple's 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) appears to have sold out in… (wait for it…) about two minutes. What we originally thought was a joke appears to actually be true, according to numerous developers who went to buy a ticket Thursday. This marked a new record for Apple's increasingly popular conference.

Apple made an unusual move this year when announcing the dates for WWDC. Instead of surprising the world with this information and ticket sales at once, the company gave a day's warning for when tickets would go on sale: today, April 25, at 10am PDT. At the time, developers were relieved to have some notice of when to be at the computer. But when the clock ticked 10:02 on Thursday morning, people began receiving messages that tickets were already sold out.

All 5,000 tickets to WWDC have been selling out since 2008, but the time frame back then was months, not minutes. In 2009, those tickets sold out within about one month, and in 2010, the sellout time closed to about 10 days. In 2011, tickets sold out in about 12 hours. Then, in 2012, they sold out in two hours, prompting calls for Apple to rethink its ticket system in order to ensure longtime, committed developers were able to get into the conference.

Perhaps Apple's strategy of pre-announcing the time tickets would go on sale this year backfired. Instead of taking developers by surprise (as it has in years past), Apple instead gave developers plenty of advance warning for when to buy. This apparently made everyone even more eager to get tickets right at the moment they went on sale.

Numerous developers are still voicing their disappointment on Twitter and elsewhere. Digg.com developer Rob Haining asked me in IM, "What am I supposed to do with June now? I couldn't even get to the purchase page before they sold out."

There are still some ways for some developers to attend WWDC. Apple plans to give out 150 free tickets to students who want to be developers, and we've heard (unverified) stories of years past when Apple has reserved a handful of tickets for high-profile attendees. That said, Apple also announced that it will make the session videos available to registered developers while WWDC is still happening this year. So those who weren't able to sneak into the two-minute window can still watch along from home—or their hotel rooms in San Francisco.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

The other side of the story is that many developers that were on the ball failed to get tickets due to server errors (me) or errors checking out after the tickets were in their cart (a coworker).

I think Apple has to rethink this. They may as well do a lottery at this point; this time you bet on server stability. Or recognize that popularity and intrest may mean increasing the size of their conference.

Sure, the labs are limited by engineering staff size. But I'd rather join some kind of lottery pool for the labs, rather than for the whole conference.

It's not the developers snapping up all the tickets... it's the people who are interested in just attending the keynote to see whatever is unveiled. I saw comments on Apple enthusiast sites from people (not even press or tech bloggers) that wanted tickets just for that reason. Th keynote needs to be separated out, and maybe it will free up slots for the intended audience of WWDC.

I got a ticket, and as far as I could see the web page was never slow, the system didn't seem even a little overloaded. Beforehand I prepared by having my credit card ready and the WWDC ticket page open. At 9:59 I simply started reloading the tickets page every ten seconds or so; at about 10:00:20 the "sign in" button appeared on the page and about a minute and a half later I had purchased my ticket. It was extremely smooth.

I never imagined that by the time I tweeted "WWDC ticket purchased" right after my purchase, the tickets had already been sold out for a minute. Crazy times.

Not that I was going to go to either event. But there were about 16,000 people in the queue last night about five minutes after sales opened.

WWDC didn't sell out as fast as SDCC (the "waiting rooms" filled up in 90 seconds or so, even factoring in their server issues, then it took 90 minutes to process everyone through the payment system until all tickets were sold), but 2-3 minutes is super fast, it might as well just be a lottery.

Not that I was going to go to either event. But there were about 16,000 people in the queue last night about five minutes after sales opened.

WWDC didn't sell out as fast as SDCC (the "waiting rooms" filled up in 90 seconds or so, even factoring in their server issues, then it took 90 minutes to process everyone through the payment system until all tickets were sold), but 2-3 minutes is super fast, it might as well just be a lottery.

I mean, it's sort of splitting hairs. Some developers think WWDC sold out somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes, so it may well have been 90 seconds, or 93 seconds, or 89 seconds...

This does seem to be a trend in a lot of cons lately. WWDC now joins SDCC (which is I believe the fastest to sell out), Blizzcon, and PAX. The other cons do have a LOT more than just 5k tickets (usually its what...70k people for PAX, I think blizz is 30-40k?)

I like the idea of a lottery with the ability to get extra slots and weights based on criteria Apple keeps secret.

Like if you didn't' go last year you get 1 extra chance.If you didn't go in the past two years you get 3 extra chances.

If you don't have an app in the store you get an extra chance.If you develop on more platforms, say you have a OS X and iOS app, give an extra chance

Prioritize certain countries. Maybe Apple is pushing for uptake in India. They certainly could weight for that.

Weight based on developer account history. Like super new means they may be learning but 5 years in with tons of new versions should be someone experienced who needs less help. Prioritize someone in that middle range who needs to get over a hump.

Maybe prioritize based on company position. Somehow track who's making the submissions. Weight this person higher than a senior partner who logs in one a year to pay the bills.

It was exactly the same with Google I/O tickets a few weeks ago (although they took about one hour to sell out).

Not really sure what's the solution for this. Maybe they should just have everyone apply for the tickets and then have half of them allocated by lottery and the other half by the applicant submitting a "cover letter" why they should get the ticket--this way the developers who really need them may have an easier way to get them. I don't know.

Also, they may say that the tickets are not transferrable, but in many legitimate cases this policy tends to be waived, so I would not consider that an issue (if you wanted to simply give it to a friend/colleague, they would probably allow it--again, for Google I/O they certainly do despite having the same "non-transferable" policy).

Not that I was going to go to either event. But there were about 16,000 people in the queue last night about five minutes after sales opened.

BlizzCon tickets sell out within 5-10 seconds. You just do not know the actual time since you can sit in queue until all tickets are sold. But if you did not make it to 4000 or lower, you did not get tickets.

We had a group effort to get enough tickets, with everyone sitting in ventrilo. 2/3 people got in, 1/3 did not.

Not that I was going to go to either event. But there were about 16,000 people in the queue last night about five minutes after sales opened.

BlizzCon tickets sell out within 5-10 seconds. You just do not know the actual time since you can sit in queue until all tickets are sold. But if you did not make it to 4000 or lower, you did not get tickets.

We had a group effort to get enough tickets, with everyone sitting in ventrilo. 2/3 people got in, 1/3 did not.

This is vey true about BlizzCon.We had four people last night spamming page refresh at exactly 7pm. None of us got in.

If you actually took the time to set the number of tickets you wanted on the loading page before hitting "Submit", those two or three seconds cost you entry. We submitted within 5 seconds, ended up just higher than 4000 in the queue, and lost out.

As much as I would like to attend some of these conferences, I have been very content to watch them from the comfort of my home thanks to the efforts of sites like Ars or The Verge who typically have fantastic live coverage. In the event that there is no live coverage, the most pertinent information is typically up in an article within minutes. No travel/monies required!!! Besides, my wife would just laugh at me if I asked her permission to get tickets to something like BlizzCon.

I thought they sold out years ago when they rolled MacWorld into it and it became more of a product promotion than a developer focused event...

It has sold out for eight years running, but you are mistaken about MacWorld being rolled into it. It wasn't. WWDC is used for product promotion no more now than it was before MacWorld ended. There have always been occasional hardware or software announcements at it.

It's not the developers snapping up all the tickets... it's the people who are interested in just attending the keynote to see whatever is unveiled. I saw comments on Apple enthusiast sites from people (not even press or tech bloggers) that wanted tickets just for that reason. Th keynote needs to be separated out, and maybe it will free up slots for the intended audience of WWDC.

I've always just assumed most of the audience were apple fanboys

Uh huh. There are 5,000 people willing to spend $1599 for tickets + $99 for a developer membership to get a chance to see the (non-Steve) keynote an hour or two earlier than everyone else (keeping in mind that many WWDC attendees end up watching a video feed in a overflow room). Sure.

What seems more likely is there are a few such people, and everyone else is there for the developer conference.

I don't understand how you fix the problem of only having 5,000 tickets for an event that 500,000 people want to go to.

An economist would tell you there is a very simple solution to a limited supply of product being outstripped by a very high level of demand--it's not going to be popular, but that's when you raise prices. If 500,000 people think the conference is worth $1600, how many will think it's worth $2000? Probably fewer, though still many more than the 5,000 slots.

If Apple wants more students and first-time developers present, provide a discount to (gasp!) students and first-time developers. I like the idea of a scholarship program as well.

Perhaps even a bidding process in which perspective attendees tell apple the maximum price they would be willing to pay to attend. Then Apple could look at the 5,000th highest price and charge that amount to everyone who bid at that level or higher. I guarantee it's worth more to those people than the $1600 Apple currently charges.

It's not the developers snapping up all the tickets... it's the people who are interested in just attending the keynote to see whatever is unveiled. I saw comments on Apple enthusiast sites from people (not even press or tech bloggers) that wanted tickets just for that reason. Th keynote needs to be separated out, and maybe it will free up slots for the intended audience of WWDC.

I wonder if this makes David Gewirtz of ZDNet realize what a fool he is. Just a few days ago, he had a story with the clickbait headline, “iOS developers abandoning sinking Apple mothership: biggest drop ever.” Yeah, it really sounds like those developers are abandoning Apple, doesn't it, moron? ;-)

It's not the developers snapping up all the tickets... it's the people who are interested in just attending the keynote to see whatever is unveiled. I saw comments on Apple enthusiast sites from people (not even press or tech bloggers) that wanted tickets just for that reason. Th keynote needs to be separated out, and maybe it will free up slots for the intended audience of WWDC.

The conference is supposed to be "Worldwide Developer Conference" so 5000 attendees isn't going to cut it. This is either a gross underestimation by Apple on how many Apple developers exist around the world or an attempt by Apple to create mass hysteria. I won't put the latter possibility beyond Apple. Now if they really want to be developer focused they could do one of the following

1.) Increase attendance to 25000 (or some big number) attendees and move to a bigger venue. There are plenty of convention centers around the world that can offer that sort of space or even more.2.) Have maybe 4 or 5 WWDCs in a year one each in a different part of the US or the World. This will foster regional focus and maybe even increase developer adoption.3.) Sell broadcast rights to a tech focused TV channel like G4 or Spike and/or simulcast over the web. Questions to presenters of course go via Twitter or any number of social media outlets in existence today.

It's not the developers snapping up all the tickets... it's the people who are interested in just attending the keynote to see whatever is unveiled. I saw comments on Apple enthusiast sites from people (not even press or tech bloggers) that wanted tickets just for that reason. Th keynote needs to be separated out, and maybe it will free up slots for the intended audience of WWDC.

I've always just assumed most of the audience were apple fanboys

This year it is developers. The requirements to buy a ticket were that you were a member of the developer program both when the ticket sale time was announced and when the tickets actually went on sale. That's not to say someone who has never developed anything can't be a member of the developer program, but it might have surprised people who expected just to casually pick up a ticket to check out the keynote.

@chabig: Yes, I know three people who did this in 2011. None can code. All were also "attending" a Java conference in San Jose, they bought tickets for both conferences. What they were mostly doing was shopping once the keynote was over.

The conference is supposed to be "Worldwide Developer Conference" so 5000 attendees isn't going to cut it. This is either a gross underestimation by Apple on how many Apple developers exist around the world or an attempt by Apple to create mass hysteria. I won't put the latter possibility beyond Apple. Now if they really want to be developer focused they could do one of the following

It has always been 5,000 because that's the limit for the venue plus Apple engineers' time. The company already shuttles thousands of engineers into SF to give the talks and teach work sessions. They can't shut down the entire company for five days just to make every single engineer available to conduct sessions and help out other devs. It was 5,000 before WWDC started selling out and it's 5,000 after. The only difference is that the iPhone was launched in the middle.

Surprised nobody has mentioned what other companies do in this situation.

Break out the tickets into groups and sell them at different times on different days in different batches. Some of those batches should be limited by company size, some by app store ratings, etc. so you get a good mix.

Finally, the keynote should be sold separately and take place in a larger venue.